Tag - inequality

Most gringos don’t realize that Brazil and Latin America’s experience with democracy is relatively recent. Brazil has come a long way since it returned from dictatorship to democracy in the late 1980s. It only drafted its current constitution in 1988, just over twenty years ago. Today, politics is less polarized, the military has less influence, consumers have greater choice thanks to fewer barriers to imports, and most crucially, inflation is no longer the unslayable dragon it was in the late 1980s and early 1990s...

Well, perhaps not the end of inequality, but the beach certainly is something of an equalizer. Although the beach has its classes and groups, it is the closest Brazilians come to indiscriminate association.
Perhaps you have a few class indicators, like a pair of sunglasses or a fancy bathing suit, but except for some very informal segmentation it’s often difficult to tell rich from poor, poor from rich. Conversations and activities among strangers intermingle.
Carolina and I observed one little fat white kid playing with a frisky group...

Today’s Jornal do Brasil reports “47% of the GDP in only 1% of [the country’s] municipalities.” (page A17). Today, 40% of the nation’s poorest municipalities account for just 4.6% of the country’s GDP. Those are some figures to drown in.
Inequality has obviously gotten worse, not better over time. In 1920, the figure for the richest 1 percent of municipalities was 21%, versus more than double, at 47% today. Brazil’s poor may have become richer in absolute terms, but so have the rich– much, much...